Part X.

MAGNETISM,
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foul’s natural magic, fome have ignorantly attributed folely to •verfes , charms , Jignsy characters , &c. by which hierarchy or holy dominion inherent in man, thofe effeCts, whatever they may be, are wrought, which fome (who but too corporeally philofophize) have attributed to the dominion of Satan.
High and facred is the force of the microcofmical fpirit, which, as is evident in pregnant women, ftamps upon the young the image and properties of a thing deflrea, as we have before inftanced in a cherry, which, without the trunk of a tree, brings forth a true cherry, that is flefh and blood, enobled with the properties and power of the more inward or real cherry, by the conception of the imagination alone ; from whence are two neceffary confequenceS.
Firflr, that all the fpirits, and as it were the eflences of all things, lie hid in us, and are'born and brought forth only by the working, power, and phantafy of the microcofm.
The fecond is, that the foul, in conceiving, generates a certain idea of the thing conceived ; the which, as it before lay hid unknown, like fire in a flint, fo by the ftirring up of the phantafy there is produced a certain real idea, which is not a naked quality, but fomething like a fubftance, hanging in fufpence be- tween a body and a fpirit, that is the foul.
That middle being is fo fpiritual, that it is not plainly exempted from a cor- poreal condition, fince the actions of the foul are limited on the body, and the inferior orders of faculties depending upon it, nor yet fo corporeal that it may be inclofed by dimenfions, the' which we have alfo related to be only proper to a feminal being. This ideal entity, therefore, when it falls out of the invi- fible and intellectual world of the microcofm, it puts on a body, and then it is firfl inclofed by the limitation of place and numbers.
The objeCt of the underftanding is in itfelf a naked and pure eflence, not an accident, by the confent of practical, that is, myftical divines; therefore' this Proteus or transferable eflence, the underftanding doth, as it were, put on and clothe itfelf, with this conceived eflence.
But becaufe every body, whether external or internal, hath its making in its own proper image, the underftanding knows or difcerns not, the will loves and wills not, the memory recolleCts not, but by images or likenefles : the under- ftanding
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MAGNETISM.